By Tom Jordan with Tom murphy
As if that's not enough, they may be the best high school team in America; a National Soccer Coaches Association of America poll lauded them as the best soccer team in the nation for most of the season. They went out and proved why with a pair of hard-fought and tense victories.
Long Island champions. State champions. National champions. Heck, maybe the world is not enough.
The championship will be the last for coach Bob Bigelow, who retired after Saturday's game. He went out in style, with his tenth state title since 1987.
After sweeping away the competition on Long Island, the Cyclones had to get past two very talented teams in Rochester in order to retain their state championship crown. Shenendehowa in the semifinal match on Fri., Nov. 16 and Monroe-Woodbury, another nationally-ranked team, the next day. South Side defeated the same Monroe-Woodbury team last November in the semifinal round.
The competition was really great, said senior midfielder Nina Nanavrakis. But our conditioning and experience in big games carried us through. During the last few minutes of a tough game, it comes down to whichever team can last.
The semifinal game was played at Wheatland-Chili High School, on the same field that the Cyclones clinched their first Class A title last year. The defensive battle went scoreless into the second overtime, until Nanavrakis fired a line drive past the Shenendehowa goalkeeper. The shot banged off the post, but junior Christine Abrams was in the right place at the right time. She punched the rebound into the net for the game-winner. Just like that, South Side was headed back to the championship game. But their work was far from done.
Saturday was the harder of the two games, but they were definitely two good teams, said senior Corry Silon, who has enjoyed three championships -- the first in Class B in 1998 --during her South Side career.
The championship game, played at Brockport High School outside Rochester, was knotted at 0-0 with just over 17 minutes to play when Nina Nanavrakis redirected a blast by senior midfielder Suzanne Graham into the net, giving the Cyclones a 1-0 victory over two-time Section IX champion Monroe-Woodbury. Nanavrakis was the team's leading scorer during the regular season with nine goals, but she had been held scoreless in the playoffs.
Of her championship-winning goal, Nanavrakis said: It was a relief, and kind of overwhelming. So much was expected of us this year. I think everyone was just trying to put one in. Once we scored, everyone was able to relax and focus on playing defense.
For Nanavrakis the goal was a longtime coming. I told my coach prior to the game that I owed him a goal.
Once they scored, the Cyclones were not going to cough up the lead. Not with the way they'd played defense all season, especially in the playoffs. And not with sophomore goalkeeper Christine Conway guarding the net and senior Lisa Jaffa setting the tone on defense.
Christine Conway is really good, Nanavrakis said. South Side is lucky, because she's a sophomore and she'll be around for a few years. And everyone has confidence in Lisa Jaffa.
Oftentimes defense is overlooked. Not by the Cyclones. Jaffa took home her second straight Class A tournament MVP award from Rochester.
Silon agreed that Jaffa was the key to the South Side victory. Our defense has always been strong. Lisa Jaffa led us through.
Bigelow admits it wasn't the team's strongest game, saying the semifinal game took a lot out of them. You didn't see us play our best out there today and part of that was because we didn't have the time to recover from our overtime win Friday.
But their spirits wouldn't be broken.
We knew it was just a matter of time before we scored, Bigelow said. The kids knew what they had to do and found a way to score.
Before winning the Class A title in just their second year in the bracket last season, the Cyclones previously amassed eight championships in Conference B.
As far as dynasties go, South Side is the Ming of New York State soccer. But things will look significantly different next season without Bigelow, who will leave South Side after 21 years as the soccer coach.
Bigelow, always soft-spoken, even announced his retirement in the subtlest of ways. I'm a senior now, he told his team before the championship game Saturday. That was all.
South Side won't be the same without him, Silon said. But he feels it's time.
It's a big loss for South Side, but there's no better way for him to go out, Nanavrakis said.
Last season's 20-0 championship season was supposed to be the pinnacle for the Cyclones and for Bigelow. An undefeated championship had never been attained by a girls New York State soccer team until the Cyclones turned the trick, and so it was thought it would be a while before such perfection was matched. The Cyclones duplicated the feat this season. They've now won 48 consecutive games.
For the seniors, the final gun was bittersweet. After all of the hard work and good times, successes and disappointments, however few there were, it all ends so suddenly.
I'll miss the bond I had with the girls. They're my best friends. It's very disappointing that it's all over now, Nanavrakis said.
I couldn't ask for anything more from my senior year, Silon said. It was a special time playing with my closest friends.
Tom Murphy, a sportwriter for Messenger Post newspapers of Rochester, N.Y., co-authored this story.
